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Saturday, January 16, 2016

Book Review: Ravel by Shari J. Ryan

At twenty-three, I’m left with a decision. The outcome could be life or death.

Trent
hit me once, and I cried. Then he hit me again. And again. After a
while, I got used to it, as I slept on the floor beside his bed, night
after night.

Everyone told me to leave him, but I can't. He won't let me.

The
moment I wanted to give up on myself and any form of hope, Kemper—a
tall, sexy Marine just home from Afghanistan walked into my bar. With
one look in his eyes, I saw pain that mirrored my own.

At first,
I thought maybe he would be my prince charming, riding in to save me,
but all it took was one tragedy for me to remember…fairy tales don’t
exist in real life.

I was in the mood for an emotional journey when I picked Ravel up. Judging from the blurb, I thought that this would be the perfect book to fit my needs. I was about a third of the way through the book and I thought that Ravel might make me actually ugly cry. But unfortunately, it didn't. "Unfortunately, it didn't" was kind of the whole theme for me with this book.

Unfortunately, it didn't help the flow of the book when the story keeps getting broken up by flashbacks. Granted, the flashbacks are completely necessary with how the author was writing this book. I saw the need for them but they just didn't always help the story. It felt like they sometimes took something away from what was going on currently with the characters. Personally, when I pick up a book, I want to be able to lose myself in it. I don't want to have the chance for issues/concerns and all of that from my life to interfere with what is happening with the story. But that is a little inevitable when you're having to check at the beginning of each chapter to see:

a.) Whom the chapter is about

2.) When the hell the chapter is taking place and

d.) remember what in the hell happened with that last time-period/character.

It's just too damn much to have to keep up with especially with how deep this story goes. I don't know ... the flashbacks just stilted the story and it irritated me. Maybe it irritated me more than it should have because I was so excited to read it and then for the start-stop action to be going on with the story like I'm in a freaking car with a student driver who is a little heavy on the pedals.

Unfortunately, it didn't help the storyline for things to move so very slowly within the story. I can almost see why it was so slow because of what Daphne was going through but at the same time, I found myself skipping sentences just so that I could get to a part when something was happening. Anything. I just wanted to light a fire under the story's ass to make it get a move on. The slow moving story coupled with the flashbacks made this book seem quite a bit longer than it actually was. And not in a good way.

Unfortunately, it didn't help my overall feeling of the book when the ending lit up and then fizzled out like a match getting rained on. There was a point when I thought that the story would really redeem itself and the suspense was building and I was shifting in my seat, getting antsy for what was to come only to have things drop off and the scene just end. Also, irritating.

As much as I wanted to like this book, it just didn't like me back. I don't know ... maybe I'll pick up another one of Ryan's books in the future but maybe I won't. I don't think that her writing style and my reading likes are on the same wavelength. Unfortunately.